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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I
can’t say that I’m a huge fan of Woody Allen because, quite honestly, I
haven’t seen many of his films. I did see “Annie Hall” which initiated
me into the appreciation of his humor.

I particularly enjoyed a scene in which Woody’s character is riding in a
car with Annie. As Annie approaches the street curb to park her car,
she leaves quite a distance to the curb. As Woody’s character gets out
the car, Annie asks him if everything is OK. He responds, “Yep, I’m
fine. I can walk to the curb from here!”

It’s this type of humor that led me to appreciate my favorite Woody
Allen quote. “Eighty percent of life is just showing up.” There is a
lot of proverbial truth to this. If you want to complete your college
degree, show up for the first class. If you want to learn to play the
guitar, show up for the first lesson. If you want to climb a 14,000
foot mountain, show up at the base and begin walking.

An
equally compelling truth is evidenced by the converse logic that
“eighty percent of failure is due to not showing up.” If you want to be
assured that you will never complete your college degree, don’t show up
to another class. If you want to be assured you will never learn to
play the guitar, don’t show up for the first lesson. Obviously, you
will never climb the 14,000 foot mountain if you never travel to the
mountain.

However,
since this blog ought to be of a spiritual bent, you’ve probably
presumed that my point is not whether one chooses to show up or not for
guitar lessons. I’m not going to encourage your ambitions by saying
“life is your stage, go have the performance of your life! Keep showing
up!” To say this would be to adopt the humanist view that life is
about me and my experiences. To say this would propagate the ideology
that life is the sum of our experiences, so get out there and amass
experiences.

What
if life isn’t about amassing experiences? What if life isn’t about
collecting hundreds of Facebook friends and posting pictures of leisure,
accomplishment and adventure that purvey a somewhat less than accurate
picture of my true life? Is it possible that if we evaluate life by the
sum total of our experiences, that most of us will feel short-changed
in the end? What if my Facebook page said something about my haunting
reflection that I showed up for life, but in the end, life wasn’t all
that amazing?

What do I do then?

The
first question of the Westminster Confession’s Larger Confession asks a
penetrating question. “What is the primary and highest purpose of
human beings?” While you are pondering your answer, let me mention a
study done on the Facebook experience that showed that the more time
someone spent reading the status updates of others’ Facebook pages, the
more unhappy they became with their own lives. The study concluded that
the subjects of the study became depressed reading about the lives and
events of their friends because they concluded that their friends’ lives
were much more exciting.

So
let’s get back to our question. “What is the primary and highest
purpose of human beings?” No, it isn’t simply to show up for life. No,
it isn’t numerous exciting achievements and excursions posted to
Facebook pages. The Westminster Confession proclaims “to glorify God
and to enjoy him completely forever.”

The
men who assembled the contents of the Westminster Confession spent time
thinking about one of life’s biggest questions . . . why am I here and
what am I to do now that I am here? I’m sure they pondered the writings
of Solomon in Ecclesiastes where he concluded after gaining substantial
wealth, wisdom, power and fame that it is all vanity and meaningless.
The writer of Ecclesiastes came to this sobering conclusion, “The
conclusion, when all has been heard is: fear God and keep His
commandments, because this applies to every person.”

I
don’t think many would read this final summary and feel warm and fuzzy
inside about the final purpose of humanity. Though the writer of
Ecclesiastes is entirely correct, the rest of Scripture paints the
fuller picture with much greater color and detail. This greater
ensemble of Scripture is, I’m sure, to what the Westminster Confession
alludes.

So
how does this correspond back to Woody Allen’s quote? He got the first
half right . . . the secret to life is showing up. However, he missed
the point of where we are to show up. In a grandiose way, the
Westminster Confession tells us. We will find the meaning, purpose, and
overflowing joy of life by showing up with God.

Beginning
with the Old Covenant in Genesis 17 through the New Covenant, God’s
heart and desire has been to be with His people. He longs for you to
simply come and abide with Him . . . no agendas, no fake religiosity.
Just as a mother and father crave the nestling of their child, so the
Father craves His children’s presence. He wants to hear His children
tell Him that there’s no place in the world that they would rather be
than in His arms.

I
thought of the Woody Allen quote because of something a friend of mine
has said. I’ve known Mike for about six years now. Every time we talk,
I hear Mike’s heart for the Lord. Mike loves evangelism and prayer.
When he speaks about prayer, he has a wonderful saying. “God just wants
you to show up.”

Mike’s
quote is the fulfillment of Woody’s quote. Woody encourages us to show
up somewhere while Mike shows us with whom we are to meet.

My
prayer is that after reading this you will commit daily to meet with
your God. You will find meaning, purpose and joy beyond anything this
life can offer . . . because you are meeting with the Source of Life,
Himself. May God reward your quest as you seek Him.